Virtue, Justice, and Natural Law as Regarded by Alasdair MacIntyre

Modern moral philosophers and pre-modern philosophers in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition radically differ on their approaches to such moral concepts as virtue, justice, and the natural law theory. The present article aims to assess how Alasdair MacIntyre treated their differences, and to explain his reviving views on these moral concepts in pre-modern philosophy. MacIntyre maintains that virtue, justice, and natural law, as seen by modern philosophers, are abstracted from their historical and anthropological contents and contexts. He holds that modern philosophers have replaced the concept of virtue with the concept of duty and interest, while they also have endorsed an individualistic attitude which cannot provide an adequate understanding of virtue. MacIntyre believes that to make sense of virtue and to cultivate it in people, we are required to pay attention to social activities, historical background, and tradition. He thinks that the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical tradition was the best philosophical context in which the concept of virtue was developed; modern philosophers also were concerned with the formal and abstract sense of justice, and took the function of justice as protecting individual rights and private goods; but justice in the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical tradition is considered to be a virtue according to which everyone would receive his share of common good in the society in line with what he deserves. Modern philosophers have grounded the natural law theory in the transcendental subject whereas philosophers in the pre-modern era had grounded it in the inclinations and tendencies of simple ordinary humans.